There have already been a few stop-offs on Travis's trip down their collective Memory Lane. The authentic Charles Rennie Mackintosh architecture, the band's favourite snack bar, their one-time rehearsal space which now even have a freshly affixed commemorative plaque on it…"exhaustive" isn't the word. Their nostalgic saunter round the streets of Glasgow grinds to a halt in the city centre, however, as an excited Fran Healy spots a gang of decidedly U16 schoolgirls shivering beneath an ineffectual umbrella.
"That's my old school!" he beams, pointing at their uniforms and rescuing everyone's minds from the gutter. Reluctant to be photographed with what appears to be an overexcited man in a funny hat, the pupils of Fillen Comp avoid him like acne--until one of them thinks to ask whether, as someone's snapping his every move, he's famous. Seconds after the identity of Travis's frontman is revealed, 50 kids appear from nowhere and surround the local hero, hastily ripped pages of notebooks in their hands and vast grins on their faces. Fran, being the most affable man on earth, signs every single sheet.
A few hours later, posing before the immense neon façade of the infamous Barrowlands venue in a very chilly-looking T-shirt, Fran wanders up to a couple of lads standing outside a local bar and asks for a light. One reaches into his pocket. Out of the blue, the other informs his friend, "He just said, 'Fuck the Pope.'"
"Did you?" asks his friend incredulously.
"He did!" reiterates the worse-for-wear troublemaker. He said, 'Fuck the Pope!'"
A firm kick is dealt to the Healy shins. Fran--ironically the only Catholic member of Travis--says nothing and walks away.
"I think the essence of Glasgow is in the extremes," he says over lunch the next day in the more sedate environment of a city centre seafood restaurant. "Extreme friendliness and extreme hostility. Sometimes the balance isn't there and you get a bad year, but generally speaking, the balance is struck, and it all runs perfectly."
Despite the fact that everyone who's never been to Glasgow thinks it's just some enormous council estate, it's actually one of Europe's prettiest cities. Parks abound (57 at last count), the shopping and transit systems are second only to London's, and it holds the title of U.K. City of Architecture and Design 1999. It was even an influence on the somewhat better-PR'd San Francisco--the two cities share an abundance of dangerously steep hillsides, so Glasgow loaned its blueprints to San Fran's town planners.
All told, the city currently houses 600,000 people (coincidentally, the number of copies The Man Who has sold to date)--less the four members of Travis, who left for London three years ago in search of a record deal.
"We don't really miss Glasgow, because we spent 23 years here," explains Fran. "Why would you miss something you're so familiar with? You carry it about and spread it about. When you compare it to London…I don't even see London as a city, London's like a little country. A country with loadsa little cities in it: the city of Crouch End, the city of Camden, the city of Streatham, whatever.
"There is some part of you," he continues, "that feels a wee bit guilty about having to move away. When you're from a working-class background, you've got it in your blood to stay where you are and never move, never branch out. But I think it's like…if you're a fisherman, you're more likely to catch fish in a big river than a small river. Maybe some Japanese people would say, 'You should stay at the small river, you'll catch a better quality of fish,' but I think we carry with us something that keeps us all Glaswegian."
"We catch more fish," says lead guitarist Andy Dunlop, "but we'll chuck away the rubbish ones."
"And we deep fry them," adds bassist Dougie Payne. "Obviously!"
King's Cafe
A mere snack bar to the uninitiated, King's Cafe almost singlehandedly provided Fran, Dougie, and Andy with their staple diet during art school. Even today, the none-more-carbohydrate delicacy of two deep-fried potato fritters in a bap still retails at just 80p.
"After a hard day in the studio," recounts Dougie with an ironic swagger, "sweating and getting these hard hands, you needed to line your stomach with something before you'd get…twatted on cheap lager. We'd always get the same, roll and fritters, the cheapest thing on the menu."
"Or a pie supper," amends Fran.
"Och, now that's when you're minted," says Dougie. "That's when you'd just got your student loan in."
"It used to be 50p," laments Andy.
"Aye, it's gone up. More than inflation," notes Dougie, reaching for a medicinal cigarette to assuage the shock.
Glasgow School of Art
Designed by Rennie Mackintosh, the sandstone central building wherein Fran and Dougie first met has the linear-yet-decorative wrought iron details you'd expect from the man whose legacy keeps the Past Times shop chain afloat. Within the hallowed halls, however, artistic tendencies weren't always so freely encouraged.
"The problem is," says Dougie carefully, "the two words are an oxymoron: 'art' and 'school.'"
"They start trying to create a structure for marking and grading art," bemoans Andy, "and all the bad tutors stuck to that, like 'You must have X amount of sketchbooks and X amount of finished pieces,' and it just becomes totally formulaic."
"You think it's a place to let your hair down and express yourself," says Fran, animatedly, "where there aren't any rules, but one of the things that made it easier for me to leave was one of my tutors saying about a painting of mine, 'I'm not putting that on a fucking wall.' I overheard them saying it, and I remember thinking, 'This is an art school, you're allowed to do anything you like,' but there were a couple of bad tutors there."
The Vic Bar
The epicentre of every seat of learning: the union bar. The occupants are the thrift-store constants you'd expect. Queen are playing on the jukebox. The scene is eerily timeless.
"It goes without saying that we spent a large amount, if not pretty much all, our time in here," smiles Dougie. "We haven't been back in about four years, but it looks exactly the same. They always try and change it and do it up, but it always reverts back to its natural state. You'd come in at like, nine o'clock in the morning and you'd have a coffee to start you off, then a break and a coffee, then at lunch, a cheese toastie and a pint…"
"'[Rasping cry] Cheese toastie!'" laughs Fran. "That woman behind the counter...she'd call out, '[like a dying breath] Baked potato and cheese!' like she was constantly sucking in air. It's also the place we played our first show as the four of us: utterly shambolic."
"It's generally where, if you go to the Glasgow School of Art anyway, you get most of your education," says Dougie sagely. "Most of the important bits anyway."
King Tut's Wah Wah Hut
Occupying the basement flat of a terraced townhouse, the kind of place you'd normally expect to be given over to an orthodontist's, is, in fact, the legendary venue where Alan McGee signed Oasis.
"Everyone stops at King Tut's," says Fran. "If you were a band in Glasgow, it was always the dream to get on the poster. I've kept one from 1994 or 1993, and it's got us on when we were still Glass Onion [the pre-Travis incarnation of the band, sans Dougie]. King Tut's is great because it's run by the guy who does T in the Park, that's where it all started. He gave us our first gigs. It's always been good to up-and-coming bands because it treats everyone the same. You're rider might be smaller, but…"
"…We always got fed," affirms Andy.
The Horseshoe Bar
Home of the longest bar in Europe, the Horseshoe gave drummer Neil Primrose gainful employment while his future bandmates were still bombarding their arteries and feeding the Vic Bar's slot machines under the guise of education.
"Back in 1991, me and Johnny, the guy who does our bass backlines, used to go in there after school, take our ties off, and try to get served, and we got talking to Neil," recalls Fran, "and he said then, 'Do you want to join a band?' Five years later, we ended up back there, rehearsing upstairs."
"It's a brilliant place to work because during the day, it's an old man's pub, but at night, you get a really good cross-section," says Neil.
"One of the best times in the Horseshoe was the last time we were in Glasgow," says Andy, "and this bag piper came in and said, 'Can I play?' and just set up in the corner and played for an hour."
So proud is Horseshoe manager Dave of the band's success, he recently unveiled a brass plaque outside in honour of The Man Who's Number One success.
"That's amazing!" says Fran, clearly moved by the gesture. "People don't need to do that but they want to because they're that proud that they're to do with something that's doing well. The friendliness of the staff, there's just nothing like it."
Rehearsal Rooms
Two floors up from the Horseshoe, just above the function room where the nightly karaoke now includes songs written by F. Healy, is the rehearsal room where Glass Onion became Travis, where Dougie first played with the rest of the band, and where Fran spent most of his post-art school hours. No on has used the room since Travis's tenure, and the dusty smell of male student houses hangs in the air. Their very own discarded old guitar strings are still in evidence.
"I'd go from about midday until 6 and write with the four-track," recalls Fran, "and then the rest of the band came in and we'd rehearse until 11. And they just left us, nobody interfered. They just let us have the room for free, the electricity for free. We offered to pay for it, but Neil's relationship with Dave was cool."
"It's strange coming back," muses Dougie.
"It's as if we never left," agrees Fran, "when you open the door and that familiar smell hits you."
"We've been back to the bar a few times since we left, but this is the first time we've been back to the room," explains Andy. "It's quite emotional."
The Tunnel Club
Glasgow's first and foremost house club, the Tunnel provided employment for a fresh-faced Fran before music occupied his every waking moment.
"I started working there when I was 17," says Fran, "and so for a year, I worked there totally illegally. The first night I worked there, they put me on the gay night. 'Pretty young boy, the men'll like that,' they thought. And the men liked it. I didn't even know. I was just, 'Excellent, behind the bar. I can pull pints.' This guy came up to me at the bar and said [hypercamply], 'Can I have a cider and blackcurrant, please?' And I pulled it or him and went, 'There you go,' and then he pulled me right across the bar--I was like, 'Help! Help!,' I couldn't move--and planted a big kiss on my forehead and said, 'You're lovely, you.' Strangely, that was the best night."
Schuh Shoe Shop
Pre-art school and the Horseshoe, Schuh employed and introduced Dougie and Neil.
"He came into the stock room on the first day," recalls Dougie, "and said to me, 'Alright, hot stuff?'"
"He was in his Thin White Duke period," explains Neil.
"Me and the Big Man," says Dougie, "we just hit it off from the word go, [to Neil] didn't we, darlin'? It was a funny job. I was bit reckless with the shoe selling. I was good at it, I could sell a lot of shoes, but I was a maverick, the first of a new breed of shoe seller. Serve them, but be offhand with them…"
"Rude," corrects Fran.
Dougie continues defiantly. "…And they always end up buying more stuff. I got sacked from the camping shop for it. I just used to lie around and juggle socks. I had a record number of complaints. Something like 47 letters and 17 phone calls. I was adept at selling but not at being employed."
44 Bus
Not just a bus, the humble 44 offers a slide show-esque guided tour of Fran's life.
"Just by chance, it goes by everything that means anything to me," says Fran, as the band hop aboard. "It came from where my ex lived, in Jordan Hill, then past the park and university, past the road where my friend Jude lived, up Sauciehall [Glasgow's main shopping street], past the art school and the cinema mentioned in 'I Love You Anyways' [on Good Feeling] and then to Queen's Park, past the hospital where I've been quite a few times for various cuts, bruises, and breakages, and then home to Cathcart. Door to door. There's no other bus route in Glasgow that hits as many points. In my life, at least."
Barrowlands
The venue in Glasgow for gigs (if not the entire country, if you believe Travis), Barrowlands played host to the first night of the current Travis tour, and it's where they'll return for their last two dates of 1999 on the 23 and 24 December.
"You always used to get back from gigs there and go, 'Imagine what it would be like to play at the Barrowlands!' enthuses Fran, "and then last night, it was our rehearsal room! I think it's the best venue in the UK and has always been. All good bands pass this way."
Fran's first gig there was Hue and Cry. Neil's was Big Country. Andy's was Erasure, and Dougie's was Love and Money, supported by Texas. All your favorites.
"It's all downhill from now on," grins Fran. "The big fabricated sheds you get, so-called arenas, were only designed for exhibitions. They hold no appeal to us. I hate that. If you can keep it intimate, there's so much more of a vibe going on. We'll hold off all that shit for as long as we possibly can."
Select
December 1999
Story: Emma Morgan
Photos: Andy Earl
It's a good view up there. They've sold an album for every man, woman, and child in their home city, and they owe it all to cheap lager, cheese toasties, and the kind of inspiration only underage gay action can provide. TRAVIS give Select a feelin' rough guide to their Glasgow.
